Loadlin users still have a little work to
do. First boot into Linux with the floppy. If you logged in graphically
start a terminal emulator like xterm or some
other. There are always a couple of these under the utilities menu. Type
mkdir /mnt/dosc. This is the first step to make your
Windows partition accessble to Linux and this is particularly important
for Loadlin users as it is the easiest way to
tranfer the Linux kernel to your Windows partition. Next start
linuxconf from the system menu or the
xterm and look for the filesystem menu. Expand
accesss local drives and select
add. Type /dev/hda1 in the
partition field, vfat in the type field and
/mnt/dosc/ in the mount point field and mount the
partition. Alternatively you can directly edit the
fstab file in
/etc in a text editor
(Gedit is a good choice) and add the following
line exactly as shown.

/dev/hda1 /mnt/dosc vfat defaults 0 0

This should give you access to your Windows partition, it will be in
/mnt/dosc/. Copy the linux kernel
to your C directory and rename it to
vmlinuz. You will find it in
/boot and probably called
vmlinuz followed by your kernel version number in
my case vmlinuz-2.2.14-5.0. Do not copy the
vmlinuz with an arrow in it, its a
symbolic link. Reboot into windows, get the
loadlin package from the Linux cd – it
will be in the /dostools/utils
subdirectory. Unzip it and place Loadlin.exe in the
C directory. Loadlin
and the kernel can be anywhere on your windows partition but for the time
being we will leave it in root directory of Windows. Now its up to you how
you want to boot into Linux. Read the loadlin
documentation for the details. The roundabout way is to restart the system
in DOS mode and type:

C:>loadlin vmlinuz root=/dev/hda7 ro

This will boot you into Linux. The easier way is to make a
.bat file with the same information and placing it on
your desktop. Open notepad type
c:\loadlin c:\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda7 ro and save
the file as linux.bat, right click the file, select
advanced, and check the msdos mode and warn
settings. Make a shortcut to this file and put it on your desktop. The
next time you want to boot into Linux just double click this file and you
will be in – talk about convenience.

If you want to be prompted to boot into linux before Windows boots
like the Lilo guys you have to make another
.bat file and call it from your
autoexec.bat file. It's very simple and the details
are available in the Loadlin documentation. The
file looks a bit like this.

(This little script has been filched from the
Loadlin documentation which you would know if
you did the sensible thing and read the documentation)

Save this text as linux.bat or if there
already is a linux.bat in your Windows root directory
you can place it in another directory or give it another name. Add the
following line to your autoexec.bat file
c:\linux '(or whatever you have named the
.bat file). The main thing if you are using a
.bat file is to tell
Loadlin where to find the kernel image file
(vmlinuz). The above .bat file
gives you the option to boot into Linux before Windows loads by typing
y (for Linux) or n (for Windows) within
five seconds at which point it boots Windows. Enjoy.